Marked: a Vampire Romance (8 page)

Adam wanted it, wanted her. He wanted to take her to his home and lay her down in his bed and bring her to pleasure until the sun set again. Desire and love mixed up with confusion at what they’d just experienced. Nothing like
that
had ever happened before.

And so Adam pulled back, setting her hand down gently and tying his handkerchief around her wrist. She looked at him, brow furrowed, the crease between her blue eyes deep with confusion. Adam leaned forward and kissed it, unable to help himself.

“I need to go,” he said. He was in too deep already.

Gold walked up the stairs to her room in a daze. Her wrist throbbed where Adam had given his bite and the checkered handkerchief tied there was another reminder of what they’d just done.

It had been so sensual, far more than she could have predicted. Gold knew that it was pleasurable for the vampire, but she never would have expected how good it felt for her. It had been a betrayal of everything that she was.

Shame assaulted her.

She’d
asked
him to bite her. A vampire! Not only that, a vampire whose mark she bore on her wrist. A mark that was slowly crawling up her arm, vines stretching all the way to her elbow now. She was supposed to kill Adam, not lay herself out before him like a tasty meal.

And now she had no idea how she was supposed to do that. Not now that she knew him so completely. Perhaps a stronger, more dedicated huntress could do it. One who knew how to push aside all desire, all emotion to get the job done. But that wasn’t Gold.

Adam wasn’t evil. There was darkness within him, but his goodness warred with it, and it was winning. The bond that blossomed between them had showed it all to her. He hadn’t always been a good man. If one of her ancestors had met him, he would have deserved everything he got. But he was honest now. Worthy.

How was it right to kill him?

She locked the door behind her when she entered the room and leaned against it, holding up her arm to study the twisting, dark vines. Why him? Why her?

The lines on her arm didn’t give her an answer.

Her heart hurt when she thought of doing any harm to him. She wanted to chase him down right now and finish what they’d started. How would it feel to crawl into bed with him and not leave until morning? She’d never wanted a man as much as she wanted him.

Rumor had it that vampires couldn’t take pleasure like humans did, but she’d felt the hard length of his cock pressed up against her. He’d been just as aroused as she was. She was almost grateful for the prospect of sleep. She hadn’t gone one night during the past weeks without dreaming of him.

Did he have the dreams as well? It hadn’t occurred to her that he might.

Thoughts of dreams led to thoughts of that strange vision and the voice she’d heard. What end? Adam’s death? Her own? The mad vampire Okano’s? Or something else entirely? Adam had been right there with her, the bond between them both psychic and physical.

She’d ask him in her dream, she resolved. Perhaps it wouldn’t settle the matter immediately, but if she told her dream lover something and then asked Adam about it the next time she saw him, that would answer it.

She was going to see him again. It wasn’t even a question.

For one, they had a mad vampire to hunt down. Without her mom or her aunts at home, she was in dire need of help. She couldn’t keep the town safe from Okano if he resurfaced. She was good, but it took planning and a lot of fire power to take down a vampire.

There was a reason that so few marked women survived. It was practically suicide to face a vampire alone.

Gold would begin to deal with it in the morning. It was nearing 4:00 AM and she was in no state to go back out hunting. Not at the moment.

First she untied the handkerchief around her wrist and threw it into a sink full of cold water. Then she took a shower and changed into her pajamas. A bruise was beginning to form around the two tiny welts right next to her pulse. In the morning she’d need to cover it along with the mark.

She washed off Adam’s handkerchief and wrung it out. Luckily, she hadn’t bled much and the stains came right out, pink rivulets of water washing over her fingers. She hung the cloth on her towel rack to dry.

Then she crawled into bed, ready to sleep until sunset.

Instead she was woken by bright rays of light shining through her window and someone bumbling around, making lots of noise. Gold cracked open an eye, her covers pulled up over her head.

It was her mom. Her mom who was supposed to be hunting zombies in Michigan. The mark on Gold’s skin practically burned and she curled her hand under another layer of her sheets to keep it hidden. She wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

“What are you doing here, Mom?” Gold mumbled, her voice getting clearer as she kept talking. “You’re supposed to be on a hunt.”

Her mom set a tray down at the foot of her bed, careful to avoid Gold’s legs. She smoothed down an errant lock of Gold’s hair and kissed her forehead. “Lily called me. She said you were hurt.”

Caroline Jones was just under fifty, her hair still lustrous and tawny. She wore her years well, but they’d taken their toll, as evidenced by the nasty scar that marked her forehead and the other little nicks and cuts on her arms and hands. They were the scars borne by every hunter. Gold was just beginning to accumulate the war wounds that marked her as a member of a select class.

Gold had told Lily not to call. Of course her sister hadn’t listened. “I told her it was fine. I can handle it.” Gold clenched her fist under the blankets while she lied.

Her mom paced, throwing her hands up while she spoke urgently. “A vampire? You’re smarter than that, Gold.”

“You can’t get worried just because Lily panics.” Gold sat up a little, careful to keep her right hand hidden. She wasn’t going to have this conversation while lying down.

Caroline sat down beside her, pushing on Gold until she moved over enough to give her room. She reached for the tray and handed Gold a glass of orange juice. Gold grabbed for it a little awkwardly with her left hand.

“I worry because you’re my kid,” she said. “Now drink up and we’ll talk about your vampire problem.”

Gold sipped the juice. “Thanks for breakfast.” Below the consternation at her sister rested relief. Gold had questions. She wasn’t quite ready to ask them yet, but her mom would know the answers to at least some of them.

Caroline reached over to pull the covers down. “Lily said you injured your chest. How does it look?” Gold reached with her right hand to fend her off, trying to keep her personal space personal. She realized her mistake a second too late.

Her mom gasped when she saw the mark climbing up Gold’s arm and the bruise accompanying it. “When did this happen?” she demanded.

Gold set her juice on the bedside table and let her head fall back against the headboard. “I’m dealing with it, Mom. So let me deal.” This was the problem with living at home at twenty-five. Parents didn’t understand when their kids grew up.

“You should have told me the moment this happened!” Her mom grabbed her hand, yanking the rest of Gold with it. “I know that you need to hunt down this monster alone, but that doesn’t mean I won’t help you plan. This is the most dangerous thing you’ll ever be tasked with.” She spoke with fury, her grip on Gold’s arm fierce and more than a little painful.

“Mom—” Gold tried to pull her arm back.

“When did this happen?” Her mom looked up, angry blue eyes piercing her to the bed.

There was no use arguing with the harsh look on Caroline Jones’s face. Gold surrendered and admitted, “Like two weeks ago? I think?” She couldn’t remember the exact day, but it hadn’t been long after her mom left town.

“Marigold Abigail Jones.” Oh no, all three names. She was in trouble. “How could you keep this from me? Don’t you understand how… I can’t believe—you’re…” her mother sputtered, unable to complete a sentence.

“I said I could handle it,” Gold insisted. She finally wrenched her hand back and shoved both her arms under her covers, pulling the blankets up to her chin.

“Do you have a death wish?” Her mom snapped. She stood up and bent over the bed, getting right in Gold’s face.

“What?” She was only starting to live, only starting to figure out the possibilities. Of course she didn’t want to die.

“You can’t leave the mark to fester.”

“What are you talking about?” The legends about Jones women and vampire marks went back centuries, but the details were always a bit hazy. She’d never heard about festering marks. Only death.

Her mom’s face softened, shoulders sagging. “It’ll kill you, baby,” she said, voice full of pain. “If you don’t purify the leech who marked you before the mark reaches your heart, you’re going to die.” Her mom started pacing again. “I need to check the texts. Eat your food, then meet me downstairs. We’ve got work to do.” She swiped a kiss against Gold’s forehead and then was gone, leaving Gold reeling where she sat.

Gold pulled her hands out from under the covers again and studied the mark. Adam’s bite was still there, though her mother hadn’t noticed it, the bruise blossoming into an explosion of blue and purple. She hadn’t dreamed of him last night.

She needed to see him, needed to figure this out. Was it true? That if she didn’t kill him, she would die? How could that be? And how could she bring herself to kill the man she was falling in love with?

Three days. Adam spent as many centuries biding his time, knowing patience was the strongest tool in a vampire’s arsenal. But he had not seen Gold in three days and it was driving him up the wall. That could have also been her blood in his veins. With the energy she’d given him, he could have run around the world in the space of a night and still had time to dance a reel before sunrise.

He hadn’t even taken enough from her to make her dizzy. Back in his dark days, when he’d had no remorse, no pity for those weaker than him, back when he’d drained the life completely from his victims, he hadn’t drank down as much power.

This madness he carried for Gold was nothing like the madness that had nipped at his heels in those days. It was nothing like the madness to which Richard Okano had succumbed.

Adam didn’t want to take his mind off her, but he needed to do something. Wandering the streets of Jasperton in hopes that he would stumble into her was only something he could do for two nights. If it went on beyond that, he’d be forced to admit that he had a problem.

Had he ever pined for a woman like this?

When he’d been turned, after a particularly vicious brawl outside a London pub, he’d had no wife and few prospects. Women had paid him for his bed sport at times and he’d happily taken the coin, the thought of an honest day’s labor anathema. But back then, there’d been no one special. No one to love. He’d had vampiric companions, but those relationships never satisfied. It was all about death and territory.

With Gold, it was pure. Confusing as hell, but pure.

Unwilling to go to the bookshop and unable to stalk the streets like a lovesick bastard, Adam put on his hunting clothes and headed out down Route 30 to the Great West Hotel. There was a vampire to hunt.

Okano hadn’t surfaced in the nearly two weeks since he’d gone mad. Adam had received word that Wendy Choi had made a miraculous recovery and had hightailed it back to Chicago at the first opportunity. Out of Jasperton, she was probably safe. A mad vampire might latch onto a scent and hunt its owner down, but it was early days yet for Okano and all he would be able to focus on was the hunger and pain of madness. His survival instinct would trump all else for some time.

But just because he hadn’t been seen didn’t mean there wouldn’t be clues at his last known location. Adam pulled into the cracked parking lot, the wheels of his vehicle fighting the pot holes and ruptures in the abandoned pavement.

He heard crickets chirping and owls hooting in the distance, but there was no sound of the squatters who had once made this place home. They’d been scared away by a monster and it would take some time for them to wander back.

The inside of the hotel hadn’t been touched by humans since he’d fled with Gold. He saw the hole in the half-wall balcony on the second floor where he and Okano had plunged through. The stairs were sagging and still smelled of rot. This was a hopeless place of misery. Better to tear it down and be done with it.

Adam made his way up to the room where Okano had kept Wendy prisoner. The smell of stale blood and urine assailed him. He regretted entering as soon as he did. There was nothing new to learn here, just vicarious suffering.

He heard someone kick over a piece of broken furniture and start to climb the stairs. There was only one intact staircase that led down from the second floor, and he was not keen on jumping out the window. He ducked into the room beside the one where Wendy had been kept, staying out of sight.

“I'll check upstairs, you scan outside. I doubt he's here.” The voice was muffled by the broken walls between them, but he’d recognize Gold anywhere. Adam stayed where he was, though, just in case Gold wasn’t alone when she walked upstairs. He doubted she was ready to introduce him to her other hunter friends just yet.

She stepped into the room where he’d been just a moment ago and he heard her come to an abrupt stop. He could barely make out her form through a sliver of a crack in one of the walls. She looked around, brow furrowed. “Adam?” She sounded truly puzzled.

She was alone. He stepped through the remnants of a doorway back into the room with her and gave a little wave and a sheepish smile.

“Hi,” he said.

“I couldn't…” she trailed off, her voice barely above a whisper.

“What?” He’d never been more grateful for his enhanced vampiric vision. The only light in the hotel came from a streetlamp outside of the broken windows and the moon shining through the cracked ceiling.

If he were human, he wouldn’t be able to make out the way her lips pulled a little to the right every time she looked at him, caught on the first second of a smile. He wouldn’t see the hardened warrior’s gaze in her blue eyes, compassion for Okano’s victim and sheer determination to do her justice a bright light of fury.

She shook her head a little. “Nothing, it's just strange.” The entire weight of the last few weeks seemed to be resting on her shoulders and Adam didn’t know how he could help. He took a step forward, arms outspread to hug her, but she held up her hand, stopping him in his tracks. “You can't be here right now,” she snapped.

“Is everything all right?” The curiosity and wonder from a few nights ago was gone, but Adam could sense that this wasn’t a rejection. She was holding something back, but she hadn’t closed herself off to him. If she had resolved to be done with him, he would have seen steel in her eyes and a knife in her hand.

She reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it like it anchored her. “It's… can we talk later?” She looked around wildly, refusing to meet his gaze. “I'll come to you before sunup.”

Alarm bells rang in his head. Something was seriously wrong. Adam took another step closer to her and stooped down a little, trying to get a good look at her. “Gold, I'm here,” he said. “Let me help you.”

Her head snapped up and she dropped his hand. Adam braced for rejection, but she clamped both hands on his face and dragged him down, kissing him like she was a drowning woman and he had the last air on Earth. Adam wrapped his arms around her, pulling her flush against his body. Her taste, her scent—it was like coming home, even in this damned hellhole.

After a desperate moment, Gold pulled back, sucking down breaths and eyes bright with unshed tears. “My—I'm not the only hunter here right now. You need to go. I'll come to the store later.” She spoke so fast that it was an effort to keep up with her words.

Another hunter. Of course. He’d heard, but he hadn’t realized that she would be worried. She couldn’t let her friends see her in the arms of a vampire. No wonder she was panicking.

“No, come to my house.” He gave her his address without hesitation. They’d have more privacy there, and his bed, though he could only pray like a damned man that she joined him and discovered what the connection between them made him capable of.

Gold pressed her hands against his chest, slapping it lightly in reproach. “You shouldn't tell me where you live. I'm not—”

Adam swallowed the protest with a brief kiss. “Yes you are. I trust you, Gold.” He would keep no secrets from her, not like this. He could not make her his if he was not completely hers. Still, he reassured her before stepping back. “I won't hurt your friend on my way out.”

Gold’s thunderstruck gaze met his, solemn certainty in her eyes. “I know.”